Thread: Bill made difficult by adding border agents

Gee, you think they're having trouble hiring border patrol agents?
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Bill made difficult by adding border agents

BY TOM BRUNE
tom.brune@newsday.com

May 24, 2007, 4:42 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- On the federal government's jobs Web site, ads for border patrol agents note: "Many vacancies -- South Texas / Many vacancies -- West Texas, New Mexico / Many vacancies -- California / Many vacancies -- Arizona."

Those "many vacancies" illustrate a potential stumbling block for the sweeping immigration overhaul bill being debated in the Senate, one that just got bigger with the passage of an amendment this week.

The hiring of thousands of agents is one of five "triggers" on border and interior security the government must meet before it creates a temporary worker system or grants legal status to the 12 million undocumented immigrants already here.

As introduced, the bill's triggers included adding 4,500 agents for a total of 20,000; creating 122 miles of vehicle barriers for a total of 200 miles; setting up 70 radar and camera towers; and building 370 miles of border fencing.

That's in addition to establishing a new employee verification system, and accepting applications from the millions of undocumented immigrants.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff assured the Senate that all requirements could be met in 18 months -- a claim widely met with skepticism by interest groups.

But Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) complained that the triggers weren't tough enough and raised the bar, and with it doubts that the triggers can be met. Gregg's amendment, passed by voice vote Wednesday, hikes by 2,000 the new border agents needed, for a total of 20,000; adds 100 miles of vehicle barriers, for a total of 300 miles; and ups by 35 the number of radar and camera towers, for a total of 105.

Before the amendment, Marshall Fitz of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said, "It would be delusional to think that they could actually accomplish all of these triggers within 18 months."

Afterward, Fitz said, "That skepticism is redoubled."

Even Chertoff's spokesman, William Knocke, who had said the original triggers could be met with "considerable work," changed his tune.

"We look forward to working with Congress on setting realistic and concrete triggers," he said Thursday.

Knocke said some triggers already had been met, such as daily jail space for 27,500 undocumented immigrants.

Work on others is under way, he said. For example, the agency already has 78 miles of barriers to cars and trucks. But now it must double its efforts.

"It seems like a tall order," said Princeton sociology professor Douglas Massey, because the immigration service has long been "the most inept" administration in government. Hiring enough border patrol agents is already a problem, he said. In the past year, the agency hired about 1,000 to 1,500 agents and now has 13,500, figures show. But to add 6,500 agents, it must hire more than 9,000 because of high turnover, a GAO report said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld ... -headlines

Yes the trigger has been set at hiring the border agents and not neccessarily stopping the flow of illegal aliens. If merely hiring enforcement were an effective way to stop a crime from happening then the existance of the DEA would have stopped off the drug trade. The existance of the US Army n Iraq would mean there is no longer an insurgency.